Hairy Chapter

Hair Academy was a beauty school that closed under mysterious circumstances. The school was located within the Austintown Plaza ⇒ strip mall that serves the Austintown, Ohio area. The Casal Aveda Institute ⇒ currently occupies Hair Academy’s former function and location.

Donor, Donor, Receiver, & Proofreader Adam* briefly considered becoming a hairdresser as an occupation after he graduated high school. After a day or two of classes at the Hair Academy, he knew that hairdressing was not for him. There is absolutely no shame in trying something out to see if it works or not.

Austintown Plaza From Memory

Over the period from April 30, 2008 until May 3, 2008 Adam coordinated a collaborative art project in reaction to a question I asked him about the location of the Hair Academy. Austintown Plaza From Memory is a six-part series (1 ⇒, 2 ⇒, 3 ⇒, 4 ⇒, 5 ⇒, & 6 ⇒) to create a map based strictly off of the memories of the strip mall. The people involved seemed to find the experience quite positive. I was unable to make any timely contributions to the project though I thought the idea brilliant.

I am quite thankful for the project because it was an opportunity to learn about Austintown Plaza in general as well as allowing me to get the latitude and longitude of the former beauty school. My memories of Austintown Plaza are relatively scant. It was not often that I had to go any of the stores there due to most of them being chains that had closer locations to where I lived. My most vivid memory was considering and deciding against driving my car at the time on the sidewalk in front of the Post Office at 3AM. I also remember going to Harbor Freight one time to get some cheap tools.

The Woman

Hair Academy only ever had this one logo as far as I am aware. The logo woman exudes 80s hair and jewelry style. I do not think that this would have any ill effect businesswise because the people of the Mahoning Valley are obsessed with living in the past instead of keeping up with the present.

Awful Shot

The front and back of this shirt present the same design with the main difference being scale and positioning. The picture on the back of the shirt was taken too close to the shirt to make clear that the back is not simply a closer version of the front. While this works well to maintain the vibe of the Free Shirt Archive design, I wish to address my poor photography choice so as to minimize confusion.